198 DESCRIPTION OF FEEDING STUFFS 



Linseed meal may be fed safely to all classes of farm animals; 

 generally speaking, it is one of the most desirable stock feeds avail- 

 able. Flaxseed contains a glucoside, linamarin, which, with fer- 

 ments, may yield prussic acid; but it is, as a rule, present in only 

 minute quantities, and but few cases of ill effects from its use as a 

 stock feed are on record. The cost of the more starchy factory by- 

 products makes them, in general, relatively cheaper sources of pro- 

 tein than oil meal, but the latter may be fed to advantage in smaller 

 quantities even under these conditions, on account of the medicinal 

 properties as a regulator of the system, and for its stimulating 

 effects on the appetite of the animals and their general feeling of 

 well-being. 



The quantities to be fed daily will depend on the relative cost 

 of oil meal and other concentrates. If the market prices of the 

 latter feeds are such as to admit of economical feeding of large 

 quantities of oil meal, the following amounts may be fed per head 

 daily without injurious effects: Horses, 1 pound; milch cows and 

 fattening steers, 3 pounds ; fattening sheep and hogs, 1 pound, the 

 quantities fed being increased toward the end of the fattening 

 period ; calves and lambs, y 2 pound or less. Where the production of 

 high-grade butter is the object sought, not more than one pound 

 of oil meal should be fed, since the quality of the butter is apt to 

 suffer when larger quantities are fed, especially if given with corn 

 or other feeds having a similar softening effect on the butter. 

 Calves are generally fed boiled flaxseed rather than oil meal, espe- 

 cially until they are about two months old, unless the price of the 

 seed is almost prohibitive, as sometimes happens. Oil meal may 

 advantageously be fed to swine as a slop, a pailful of meal being 

 stirred into a barrel of skim milk and left over night; the mixture 

 will form a thick, almost solid mass in the morning, which will be 

 greatly relished by swine. Fed to poultry in small quantities, a 

 tablespoonful to each hen a few times per week, it will brighten the 

 plumage, invigorate the system, and promote laying. 



Cotton-seed meal is the ground residue obtained in the manu- 

 facture of cotton-seed oil ; the oil is expressed by pressure as in old- 

 process linseed meal. The cake is generally ground into a fine 

 meal for the trade in the eastern and central States, while for the 

 western States and Europe it is broken into pieces of about nut or 

 pea size, which are readily eaten by cattle; for sheep the cake is, 

 as a rule, coarsely pulverized. There are two kinds of cotton-seed 

 meal on the market, viz., decorticated, made from seed the hulls of 

 which are largely removed before the extraction of the oil, and the 



